


this is where i long to be

by thefudge



Category: Black Panther (2018)
Genre: Complicated Relationships, Erik is efficient fuckboy, F/M, Reluctant Partners, Spies & Secret Agents, hate/love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-26
Updated: 2018-02-25
Packaged: 2019-03-24 05:33:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13804488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefudge/pseuds/thefudge
Summary: AU where Nakia comes across Erik Killmonger during her work with the CIA and things get complicated.  Set before BP.





	this is where i long to be

**Author's Note:**

> i must have seen a similar prompt on tumblr, but i can't find it right now. but this should have been a thing.  
> look, i am currently too far gone to worry about practicalities like sleep and er...real life? anyway, i promise i'm gonna take a break soon. until then!
> 
> (also i wrote this like a goblin so, apologies for any mistakes/inconsistencies. not happy with the prose but oh well, FEELS)

“Drink?”

Nakia wipes the sweat off her brow and takes the proffered flask from her partner.  She can still taste smoke and chalk in the back of her throat. This is what happens when you stand too close to an explosion.  Jason grins and nudges her in the shoulder.

“Hey, one last hurdle and we’re out of here.”

“Yes…leaving it all in ashes,” she mumbles, tapping the bottom of the flask for the last cooling drops.

“Maybe…but they’re free to rebuild now,” Jason argues, as he always does when he sees the shadow in the corner of her eye.

He’s not a bad guy, she knows that. But she also knows he could never understand.  The “dictator” they had helped to depose was actually trying to enact some kind of reform, flawed as it was.

Nakia wonders for the billionth time if it’s worth taking this case to King T’Chaka. They could aid this fledgling country, share some much needed resources. They could do it covertly, with minimal risk of exposure.

But her King would say the same thing. “We _are_ helping. That’s why you are there, Nakia.”

A twisted sort of irony. She helps…by hurting.  The CIA call it geopolitical engineering. “Destabilization” is such a coarse term. No, they’re architects, guiding the world according to their own design. Nakia may have infiltrated high-rank missions, but she’d risk blowing her cover if she actually hindered their strategy. So the most she can do is small brunt work. Help a village get clean water, appease local disputes, clear up judicial cases. Her Law degree has to serve for something.

But it’s like carrying a rock up a hill knowing it will just roll back down. When she burrows down in her tent at night, she feels as if a second Nakia is lying awake next to her, whispering in hear, “Is this all you are?”

She tries to sleep and forget this self-betrayal.

She is a double-agent, but the number is inexact. She feels she's got a dozen kaleidoscopic sides. For the past five years, she has been bartering in so many lies and half-truths. What’s one more?

She smiles wearily at Jason. “It’d be good to get out. When is the extraction team supposed to drop?”

“Sixteen hours on the dot. Let’s see if they’re punctual.”

 

 

They aren’t punctual. Someone gets there before them. A small group of wayward partisans track down their shack. They don’t pause to check. They start releasing fifty shells per minute into the decrepit walls.

Nakia lies down on the ground, eyes screwed shut, as the bullets fly over her head.

She thinks, _well…it was a good life_. The other Nakia is lying on top of her and whispers with malice, _you could have done more._

But today is not the day she dies.

Jason lifts her up from the ground. She can’t hear what he’s saying, her ears are filled with cotton, but she reads his lips.

“ _Come on! Team’s here!”_

Nakia stumbles out of the bullet-worn shack. She holds onto the door frame, watching the carnage before her.

The Black Ops are grazing the partisans.

There’s one guy in particular. Tall, strapping, not too big. He is _butchering_ them, switching weapons like articles of clothing, slipping his fingers into an AK-47 as if it was tailor-made for him.

He guns them down with a chilling sense of detachment, like his mind is somewhere else.

She yells at him to stop, they're all _dead_.

He lowers his gun with cocksure ease, allowing her to walk cross the corpse-strewn meadow. 

She purses her lips and utters a small prayer for the dead in her head. 

 

 

They’re sitting opposite each other in the helicopter.  He pulls off his helmet with a sigh. She expects a hardened face, a bored face. Men who kill while blinking, men who don’t lose sleep over it.

But there’s a strange, boyish charm to his face. Almost like cheekiness, like he’s about to tell you a lewd joke.

She doesn’t know why she gets this impression. He’s not even smiling.

They size each other up surreptitiously.

Jason makes the introductions. “This is team leader, Erik Stevens. I don’t think you’ve met Kat Nielsen. She’s our jurisdiction expert.”

Stevens offers a bare hand. Nakia stares at it for a moment. The hands of killers all look the same. She takes it and squeezes tight, just as he probably squeezed down on the trigger minutes before. There’s a momentary flicker of surprise in his eyes; he didn’t expect a firm grip from her.  

“Isn’t dangerous for someone like you out here?” he asks, not bothering with formalities.

Nakia understands. She looks deceptively small in her army vest and headscarf.

“I’ve managed so far,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest.

Jason snorts. “Oh, Kat can _handle_ herself. You should see her in hand-to-hand combat. She can put down a guy twice her size in under a minute.”

Nakia bites her tongue. She hates it when Jason lets his mouth run loose, but that’s what makes him a good agent. It’s his talent for making inefficient small talk. He’s deceptive at it. He seems like he’s giving everything away when actually, he’s feeding you bullshit and distracting you from the target.

“That so?” Erik raises an eyebrow, appraising her with renewed curiosity. But she can read contempt in it too. As if to say, _I won’t believe it till you show me._

A part of her would like to show him. But that would draw unnecessary attention to herself.

She cracks a smile. “The only guy I can lay flat is Jason.”

Her partner looks affronted, but laughs anyway.

Stevens smiles back, his eyes cold and calculating.

 

 

She’s half-asleep, dreaming of her homeland, of a particular street vendor who sells coconut ice and how much she _misses_ the taste, when the helicopter is shot out of the sky.

Nakia startles awake and is flung into the ceiling, her body tumbling against hard metal.

The smoke is like a hand gripping her throat.

She grabs onto a ledge and tries to kick her body upright. When she looks behind her, she chokes back a sob.

Jason’s body has been torn in half and there’s blood everywhere.

Half of the extraction team has plunged into the darkness below. Erik Stevens is trying to hold on, just like her, but he looks visibly weakened. There’s blood on his temples. He was hit harder than her.

“Hey! We have to jump together!” she yells at him. “ _Come_ on!”

Stevens is unresponsive, his eyes fluttering shut. His body is going to be sucked out by debris and she won’t be able to save him.

Nakia has seconds to decide. She can’t let him die.

She utters a prayer to Bast, child of Ra. She lives through the Panther, and the Panther lives through her.

Nakia detaches herself from the ledge and lands almost on top of Stevens. She checks his chute with trembling fingers. His head bobs against his chest but his hand is trying to latch onto her shoulder. So, he’s semi-conscious, at least.

Nakia hauls him up with a spine-crushing effort. She pours all her strength into the motion. She holds onto him, clinching their belts together.

Stevens’ head rests on her shoulder. She puts her arms around him and pushes both of them out of the helicopter.

The night air hits them like a cold wave, but it still burns. High velocity will do that. They are careening down fast and she can feel her grip on him loosening. Before it’s too late, she releases Stevens’ chute.

She screws her eyes shut. Death or flight?

 

 

 _Flight_ , the Great Bast decides.

 

 

Kat Nielsen isn’t there when he wakes up, but this isn’t the first time he’s woken up.

He remembers bits and pieces, disparate fragments. She is dragging his body across a clearing. She is cradling his head and forcing his lips open. She is giving him CPR, cursing at him to stay awake.

She wipes away the blood from his temples.

Foreign hands strip him naked while she watches from above, eyes glassy and still.

Her touch is different from others'. Her fingers have calluses, experience, personality. He tries to hang onto that feeling, but it slips away.

There are large gaps of nothing, moments of paralysis and sleep.

Until now. 

He blinks at the different shades of white around him. He vaguely recognizes the design of the place. Army hospital.

“Good to have you back, Agent.” 

“Where’s Kat? She alive?” he asks with parched lips.

“Agent Nielsen is very much alive and reporting for duty,” they inform him.

So, she saved his life, dragged him out of the jungle, dumped his ass in a hospital and left.

 _Damn, that’s cold,_ he thinks with a smile.

 

 

She changes to a new moniker: Delilah Grayson. That’s why it’s harder for him to find her. Not that he tries _too_ hard.

The thing is, it’s fucking awkward. They were practically strangers, forced by circumstances to crash together. She pulled him out of the wreck and now he owes her. Erik doesn’t like loose ends. He’s not comfortable with the concept of gratitude. He can’t say anyone has ever saved his life. He’s a team leader, he usually covers the rest of his men and gets hit first. It’s true that your unit keeps you alive, but there’s a sense of anonymity in it. You're all nameless brothers, fighting as one without differentiating between skin color or dog tags. That sort of corny shit.

She saved his private, individual life. That’s something else.

 

 

She’s straddling a bearded Russian in a private brothel in Bangkok. Her dress rides up her thighs and she encourages her target to grope to his heart’s content. Her cleavage is already in his face. She doesn’t really care as long as he tells her what she needs to know.

Strobe lights slide across her face and she feels like she's being scanned by a machine. 

The other Nakia sits in the booth behind her, shaking her head in disappointment.

Nakia rolls her hips forward making the Russian stutter.

“I’m sure I could find someone…with a bigger cargo for the purpose,” she teases, tugging at his expensive tie.

“No…no, ours is biggest cargo, I guarantee,” he insists, licking her lips.

Arm deals always go the same way. _We have the biggest guns_ _on the market_ , is the usual tagline. Violence and cocks, this is what the world revolves around.

The frilly curtain of their séparée parts open.

Nakia reaches instinctively for the bottle of champagne on the table, ready to smash it in the intruder’s head.

“What’s up, Delilah,” he drawls, emerging from the shadows.

She flinches in the Russian’s arms like she’s just seen a ghost.

Erik Stevens pulls a silencer on her target. On her second inhale, he’s already shot the Russian in the head.

Nakia screams. Blood spatters her dress haphazardly. It gushes to the ceiling. Stevens drags her off the dead body before it crushes her. He holds one hand against her waist.

“What the hell did you do –” 

“It’s a set-up. He was gonna have his boys take you out back and do the same to you.”

She pushes her hands against his chest. “And you think I didn’t _know_ that? He was still useful to me!”

“That’s a dumb risk to take.”

Nakia pinches the bridge of her nose. The world smells like fresh carrion. “ _Why_ are you here?”

Stevens scratches the back of his head with his silencer. “Back-up for your suicide mission.”

“I don’t need back-up,” she glowers at him.

It almost feels like she never pulled him out of a helicopter crash.

“Not your call to make, _Delilah_. Beardie over there was on our list.”

Nakia clenches her jaw. She looks down at his arms. She pulls on his sleeve angrily and reveals the raised scars on the expanse of skin.

“You mean _your_ list.”

He wonders momentarily if she’s seen the rest of his scars. She must have seen him naked at one point after their crash.

They don’t have much time. Someone’s gonna come check on Beardie pretty soon, so they have to clear out. But he takes a good look at her anyway. In the strobe light, in that bloody dress, she looks damn beautiful.

 

 

They fight their way out of the brothel. She’s never been part of his team, but they have to work like one now. He tries to take the lead, like he’s used to, but she frustrates his efforts by disregarding his commands. She takes two of the Russians on her own. He gets to see her in action.

Fuck, Jason was right. She has one guy on his back in under sixty seconds. The second one tries to put her in a headlock, and even though she’s a tiny thing, she hurls him across the room with considerable ease.

Erik wipes his mouth.

The doors behind them fly open and six more thick-necked thugs burst in with automatics.

Erik pulls her up against his back as half-disrobed hookers wail and run out of their way.

They make up a small fortress of two. 

“This is _all_ your fault,” she grits under her breath.

He suppresses a smile. Shit, this is what it’s like to be alive.

 

 

Nakia cries in the shower, holding both hands over her mouth. Death never gets old, never becomes factual to her. A man was shot while she was sitting in his lap. Bits of brain matter are still embedded in her dress. Maybe under her nails too.

She hits her forehead against the tiles until the image fades away.

There’s a knock on her door.

She wipes her face and steps out, pulls a bathrobe against her wet skin and the Glock 26 from its case.   

Erik Stevens stands in the doorway with a paper bag and a shit-eating grin.

“Aw, don’t look so upset, Delilah. I got take-out.”

She wants to spit in his face, but her stomach rumbles uncomfortably. And she knows she won’t be falling asleep any time soon.

"You gonna let me in?" he asks, one foot already on the threshold. 

She moves out of his way and he strolls into her hotel room in a very proprietary fashion.

Does he give a single shit about the lives he took an hour ago?

“I’ll wait for you to get dressed,” he says, eyes scouring her figure under the wet robe like she’s part of the meal.

 

 

They eat on her queen-size bed, sitting opposite from each other just like they sat on that helicopter. If someone were to launch a grenade into this room, would she do the same thing? Would she still try to save him?

Nakia eats like a ravenous animal, little caring for manners or appearances. She wipes the sauce from her chin and wolfs down her food, utterly focused on the task at hand.

Erik watches her, chewing thoughtfully.

“You’re gonna make yourself sick,” he remarks as she slurps her soup loudly.

“You'd better get out of the way when I do,” she says viciously, continuing to devour her meal.

“That your real accent?” he asks, licking his thumb.

Nakia throws him a look. “Yours is definitely genuine.”

He frowns. “I’m not trying to hide it.”

“You should.”

“I’m not a spy like you. I’m the guy who gets the job done.”

Nakia cocks her head to the side. “Consequences and circumstances be damned?”

He shrugs, sinking his fork in the red curry. “All that shit is relative. It matters what you do when you’re right _there_ , in the thick of it.”

Nakia is about to disagree with him, but he leans forward like he’s about to share a secret.

“It matters what you did for me. I don’t take it lightly.”

She wipes her mouth and looks away. “Anyone would have –”

“Nah, don’t try that game. You saved my life. I owe you.”

Nakia catches herself smiling. “I’m afraid we don’t share the same beliefs when it comes to life and death. You owe me nothing.”

“You’re right. We don’t think alike. But I’m still gonna pay my debt.”

She heaves a weary sigh. “ _Must_ you?”

Erik grins. “Lighten up, Delilah. I’m your friend, not your enemy.”

 

 

 _Friend_ , she thinks with a clench of her heart.

When she untangled the chute from their bodies, he wasn’t breathing anymore. She gave him CPR. She kissed him back to life. And she thought she saw _something_ flash on the inside of his lip. But in the heat of the moment, she was only focused on keeping him alive.

Now, as he sits across from her, she wants to lean forward and pull down on his lip to check.

She wants to be sure he’s not a fellow countryman.

Because if he is…did T’Chaka send someone to spy on _her_? Did he send this bloodhound to watch her movements? She’s been hearing rumors from Wakanda, that her work with the CIA has become questionable.

_No shit._

She resents it sometimes, the fact that Wakanda pretends to have clean hands while dirtying hers.

 

 

Getting out of Bangkok is trickier than they thought. They really made a mess of it at the brothel, or rather, _Erik_ did. There’s a target on their backs and the extraction team is taking its sweet time getting them out because they don’t want to attract attention. There are other deals going on in the capital and the CIA doesn’t want to disrupt the information flow.

In other words, they’re on their own for the foreseeable future.

She could send a message home and a ship would come pick her up in no time. But that would be giving up. And if Erik is a spy, she doesn’t want to give him ammunition. Besides, King T’Chaka is currently attending the United Nations meeting and all security is focused on him.

So what they do is move around from dinghy hotels to dilapidated flophouses, losing themselves in the crowd, keeping a low profile while plotting their escape.

It’s pretty slow going. Erik has already turned mercenary. He has fashioned himself an enforcer for some local shops.  The owners pay him handsomely because he keeps the gangs away. She tells him this is hardly becoming of two CIA agents, but he laughs in her face.

“ _Becoming_? What is this, Jane fucking Austen? I’m being _useful_. Also, these guys keep their ear to the ground for me. We got more chances of finding out about our enemies from them.”

He’s mercenary, but not stupid. Definitely not stupid.

They sit on the bug-infested mattress, eating cheap stir fry from the same plate and they swap information. She tells him what she managed to find out in the fish markets and he talks about his run-ins with various local gangs. She was initially surprised to find he spoke almost as many languages as her, including Siamese (poorly). She's not that surprised anymore. 

There’s a rhythm to their conversations. She doesn’t really trust him and she has no idea how _he_ feels about her. He keeps saying he owes her, but does that mean he’ll do whatever she asks? Doubtful.

He’s a stubborn ass. Of course he steals the last piece from the plate. She swats his hand away.

“Pig.”

He licks his fingers clean. “Can’t help it if you’re too slow.”

She strikes him in the chest. He catches her wrist lazily, and doesn't give it back. He holds his fingers over her pulse, stroking the skin. She knows her heart is beating a little faster and now _he_ knows too, cuz he’s got that smug smile on his lips.

This might be a good opportunity to lean forward and pretend to kiss him. Take his lower lip between her teeth, pull it back and check his nationality. It would be so easy.

She pushes him down on the mattress, pinning him between her knees.

Erik stares up at her, unconcerned. Intrigued even. There’s that boyish softness again, a kind of warped innocence that clings to his cheeks. He may be a spy, but he trusts her enough not to stop her now.

He plants his hands on her thighs, squeezing the flesh possessively. He wants her, which is not the novelty here. He’s like any regular guy whose blood rushes to his dick when a beautiful woman is atop him.  The novelty is that he lies _still_. Even his breath is kept under check, his chest barely rising. He doesn’t want to break this moment, so he keeps his hands on her thighs but leaves all the decision-making to her. She’s the one who has to initiate.

Nakia parts her lips. If she lowers her head now and kisses him, she won’t feel good. Or maybe, the kiss will feel good and the purpose behind it won’t feel good.

But she doesn’t have to grapple with this yet, because the Vibranium necklace hidden underneath her shirt pulses with life. A message from home.

 

 

The rain in Bangkok comes down in thick sheets, curtains of water beating you into submission, stripping you of your will power.

He curses under his breath. Everyone is seeking shelter under an awning. Visibility is low. He can’t see shit. He can’t call her name. He can’t go to any authorities, obviously.

Where the fuck _is_ she?

He inhales sharply and sharpens his senses. He’s operated in worse weather, it’s just that the target is different. It’s _her_. And if anything happened to her, well…he owes her a life debt, doesn’t he?

He slips in and out of bars and bodegas, trying to appear inconspicuous as his eyes register movements and faces.

He is about ready to give up when he finally finds her.

She’s sitting in the back of a garish tiki bar, nursing several empty shot glasses.

Erik slides angrily in the seat next to hers. His jaw is taut. Beads of rain trail down his forehead. There’s something morbid about him, she realizes. He looks like a funeral mask, the kind you put on when you meet the spirits. 

“Care to tell me why you’re getting shit-faced?” he asks calmly, even though he's making an effort not to bite her head off.

“Someone I…” she trails off. “Actually, it’s ...a death in the family.”

Erik recoils. “How did you find out?”

“I have my ways,” she says with a drunken smile. King T’Chaka is dead. She’s allowed to fuck up for one night.

“Did someone contact you?” he insists, narrowing his eyes.

Maybe he’s not from Wakanda, after all. He would have gotten the same message as her. He would be mourning his king. Instead, he’s _angry_ at her. 

Though, he could be pretending. Could be that T’Chaka told him to keep tabs on her even after he was gone. Could be Erik Stevens is a gifted actor.

In any case, he’s not the person she needs by her side right now. She misses T’Challa desperately, wishes she could be with him right now, wishes they could hold each other and cry. It was always so easy to cry in his arms. She still loves him, somewhere in the depths of her shrinking heart. And she fears she may have missed her chance with him forever.

Instead of her beloved, she is stuck with the bloodhound. The indiscriminate killer who wears the marks of his victims on his skin.

And suddenly, she wants to _dance_.

Madonna’s “La Isla Bonita” is blaring from the speakers and she’s never heard a better song.

She grabs Erik’s arm. “Come on, come with me.”

And it’s like that night in the helicopter. She’s telling him they have to jump together or else perish.

He tries to stop her. “You can barely walk.”

“Doesn’t mean I can’t dance.”

“Delilah –”

“That’s not my name.”

“Yeah...well, I’m not really Scandinavian. We’re all using stolen names. Doesn’t mean we gotta flash it in public,” and he points to all the patrons whose attention they’re about to draw.

Nakia shakes her head. “You said you owe me, Killmonger.”

Erik inhales sharply. So, she knows his nickname. She read his file. This broad is more trouble than he ever thought she’d be.

But he owes her.

He lets himself be dragged to the dance floor. He has to follow, if only to keep her steady. He’s cursing under his breath, but he doesn’t know why he’s angry anymore.

In fact, it all becomes a blur when she tangles her arms around his neck and pulls him down to her level.

 _Tropical the island breeze_  
_All of nature wild and free_  
 _This is where I long to be_  
 _La isla bonita…_

They sway together clumsily, their bodies pressed up against each other, her face buried in his chest, inhaling his scent. He feels both hot and cold, like he’s the one who had one too many drinks. Rain and sweat mingle in their thin clothes. He slips his arm around her waist. Yeah, he wants to fuck her and he could get her in bed tonight. No woman ever resisted him for too long. But would it end there?  He can’t afford distractions. It’s really fucking inconvenient that she saved his life, it’s really fucking inconvenient that she’s this small wonder who’s both ruthless and soft-hearted. He’d feel contempt for her, but there are, unfortunately, other things he feels.

She turns around, leaning her back into his chest, letting the music carry her away. He’s got his hands on her hips. He can feel the fullness of her tight ass against his pants. And everything is both lewd and rain-washed. Dirty and pure. Sex is an obscure possibility, it doesn’t captivate him.

He nestles his nose against her hair. He’s never danced with a girl like this. Shit, he can’t remember putting this much effort before. He lowers his mouth to the side of her neck and kisses the drunken skin, tastes the erratic pulse. He loves how alive she is, how alive she makes him feel. He's been dead for so long. 

They could be discovered right now, they’re out in the open. He doesn’t raise his head from her neck.

_Beautiful faces, no cares in this world  
Where a girl loves a boy, and a boy loves a girl…_

 

 

They’re falling down from the sky and his chute doesn’t start in the first few seconds. She clings to him and howls in despair. This can’t be the end. The sky turns bright as a diamond, bright as day. She pulls the string a second time.

They fly.


End file.
